Name
by elixile
Summary: Prompt - Name. What's in a name? Turk partners grow closer. The other character is Katana from Before Crisis. It's an old fic but I like how this one turned out.


He had extended a hand in greeting the first time he met her. It was an unmistakable recognition of a colleague. The dark blue suit clung to a petite frame lacking in generous feminine curves, tie tucked under a white collar sitting on the creamy skin at her neck. A fellow Turk. It would be dealt with due propriety. He would be polite, despite the annoyance pricking at him.

He had always worked alone.  
_...Smile._

She smiled in return and moved forward, all warm doe eyes and lightly flickering auburn waves, slipping delicate fingers across his outstretched palm. Strange how soft they seemed to him then as he wrapped his own calloused digits around her. Strange, yes, considering he knew later just how unyielding those fingers could wield majestic arcs of devastation or pinch roughly at the flesh of his cheek.

"Hi. I'll be your partner on this mission. You can call me Shuriken" the girl spoke, voice aptly slotting in with the rest of the first impression. Soft. Gentle. Feminine. He had to hold back a snort of amusement as he shook then released her hand "Such a pleasure to meet you." He bowed his head. "Katana. But, then, you probably know that already, hmm?"

Turks live as ShinRa's property and they remain ShinRa's property until the day they die. No retirement unless it is in a body bag; no hope for a plush apartment and leisurely sporting activities at the weekend. It all comes with the suit, the business. They joke in other offices that "you don't have to mad to work here, but it helps" but it is not quite a joke in the Department of Administration and Research. A sort of insanity is requisite; a lethal, intrinsic, perceptive frame of mind is required. Such talent, such skill drummed into an unflinching loyalty by organic training and sealed with a windsor knot.

One way to reinforce this loyalty is through loss of your unique identifier, your name. Either codenamed or shortened it serves its purpose to stunt the legacy of the former individual. When you become a Turk, you get your name and you get your uniform. You try to forget who you were before. It is one of the reasons Katana so easily could dedicate himself to the job.

Joining the Turks did not just give him freedom from a jail-cell; it gave him freedom from himself.

It was perhaps because of an implicit understanding of such, gained over the many years in their employ, that he did not find it odd when she told him through the mailing system to now call her Cissnei as before she had been called Tegwin. His grey-blue eyes merely scanned over that apparently minor detail before reading the remainder of text.

_  
Don't worry about me, I'm doing fine. Oh yeah, Kat - that surveillance mission just got interesting! Can't go into details of course but maybe we'll bump into each other again? Mail me back if you have time._ She signed it: _~Cissnei._

He was on another continent, back to working solitary after a number of missions with her. Occasionally Katana would feel a cold exposure upon his back on the right hand side. He never quite realized that was where she would have leaned against him, pitched back to back; because, as she liked to remind him, those damned pincer attacks were getting ever more popular it seemed.

He also did not realize straight away that he wanted to protect her, just as he had needed to, swore to and was still driven to protect his friend. Perhaps he could love her. Yet Katana had no concept of such emotion beyond the forbidden ecstasies of his youth. He was a different person from then.

He had a different name.

When he saw her again however he took two steps forward and smiled, this time the expression was warm and genuine. She looked up at him and spoke quietly "You should come back to HQ. I know you don't know her too well, but it's been three years and... " Her large brown eyes flickered with that almost maternal concern he had come to see in her as beautiful. He circled one hand around her head and drew her closer to his chest, his other hand slipping to rest at her back.

"Sh-Shuri-" he murmured into her hair, but stopped short, hesitant. For the first time in their partnership, Katana faltered over how the other Turk's name fell off his tongue. It just did not seem to be right. Peering up in his embrace her forehead wrinkled as the blades at their hips chimed together "Are... you ok, Kat-?"

He leant down, cutting her off with a remarkably chaste kiss. He would have withdrawn at that moment but her lips parted, moisture easing his own mouth further open as he felt her body relax into his own. They stayed like that for a few moments, drinking in the other, before he shifted, barely moving away, yet enough to breath words against her.

"My name... is. Adrian. Adrian Shen Kong" Overwhelmed he became sucked into a rush of confused release; heavy, dizzy and nauseous. She caught his slump and broke away to brush the hair away from his face, eyes lit with some mixture of emotion Adrian did not want to guess at.

Leaning up to his ear she laughed light and lapped gently over his lobe "Adrian? It doesn't suit you..." He could hear her girlish giggle and then a thoughtful silence.

"But... Thank-you..." A pause, a deep inhale. A steadiness, a decision. "_My real name is...._"


End file.
